VantagePoint leads $22 mln round for Liquid Robotics

SAN FRANCISCO, June 7 (Reuters) Liquid Robotics, which has
a robot-based technology for measuring ocean data, has won a
$22 million investment from VantagePoint Capital Partners and
Schlumberger (SLB.N), the world's largest oilfield services
firm.

The investment, the company's first from venture capital,
will help Liquid Robotics expand its business of deploying
unmanned floating devices to remote parts of the ocean to
measure things like oil spills for energy companies or fish
populations for fisheries.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company also announced the
appointment of Bill Vass, former president and chief operating
officer of Sun Microsystems, now owned by Oracle ORCL.O, as
its chief executive officer.

Currently, Liquid Robotics is sending two of its vehicles
to the Japanese coast to measure radiation levels in the water
after the March explosion and fire at the Daiichi nuclear
plant.

Vass said that the savings for companies using his
technology can be considerable. Tracking oil levels in water,
for example, can cost $30,000-$70,000 a day when a boat is
deployed to the area, said Vass. Subscribing to the data from
Liquid Robotics devices, known as Wave Gliders, might cost
around $500,000 for the full year, he said.

The company's technology can convert the up-and-down motion
of ocean water into forward motion, so the vehicles can propel
themselves without the large batteries required in other
devices.

But the Wave Gliders have some drawbacks.

They cannot take ocean-floor coring samples, for example,
Vass said. And they are slow, taking about four months to cross
the Pacific Ocean. Recently, a shark attacked one in the Gulf
of Mexico and disrupted an acoustic array; the company had to
program the glider to return to base, he said.

About a third of the company's business comes from the oil
and gas industry, in which Liquid Robots competes to some
extent in areas such as ocean-data measurement. One competitor
in that area is Schlumberger, which invested $2 million of the
$22 million.

An additional third of Liquid Robotics revenue comes from
government projects, and the last third from fisheries, Vass
said. He hopes to attract new customers such as telecoms
companies who want to expand the reach of their service.

Once the company lands bigger contracts, its board could
consider an initial public offering or sale, most likely to one
of the oil companies with marine-services divisions, Vass
said.

Liquid Robotics' revenue this year will total in the low
double-digit millions, Vass said adding that he expects the
company to become cash-flow positive sometime next year. He
plans to expand the 60-unit fleet by about 15-25 units a
quarter.

Co-founder and former CEO Roger Hine remains at the
company, serving as chief technology officer.
(Reporting by Sarah McBride; editing by Carol Bishopric)